Fire druid nuker discussion

[Ultinoob]

Finding the guy/girl who suggested this to me
So some time ago I was playing a ice druid and someone suggested that I tried a fire druid. I remember he/she stated that ice druid is a trap. I am sorry but I cannot seem to find this post. If you can find this post or remember that you said this once please respond. I’d like to thank that guy.


Comparing druid and sorc spells
I have been looking at sorc and druid spells for the last couple of days and fire druid is not that bad on spells.
If you focus solely on fire you have these spells from the druid:
Lvl 1: Produce flame
Lvl 2: Fire trap, (Flame blade)
Lvl 3: /
Lvl 4: Flame strike
Lvl 5: Wall of fire
Lvl 6: Fire seeds, Fire shield
Lvl 7: Body of the sun, Firestorm
Lvl 8: /
Lvl 9: (Anger of the noonday sun)

If we look at endgame we need the most damage for our buck. The two spells I have been using for some time now are firestorm and fire seeds. Granted the fire seeds animation could be sped up, but I still use it. Even when using quicken it is still really slow.
Fire seeds does 10.5 per caster level up to 21 and firestorm does 11.5 up to 20.
If we look at the base damage and compare to fire sorc we have delayed blast fireball and meteor swarm. These both have a max caster level of 20 and does 10.5 fire and 12+10 fire and force damage.
I must say I’ve never really played a fire sorc and therefore I am unsure if the 10 force damage from meteor swarm is even worth taking into account? You tell me?
But if the force damage from meteor swarm is neglect able the two spells from druid are close to the two spells from sorc.
Fire seeds is however a transmutation spell and has a smaller aoe, I think, than DBF.


Choosing race
If we assume a sorc and a druid can wear the same gear for maximising fire damage what we have left is that druid uses wisdom and sorc use charisma. This limits our choices of races and epic destinies.
I guess if you want to make a fire sorc nuker I guess draconic is the option for you. Also Teifling or Dragonborn are good races, both giving a bonus to fire spell power and one can give you 8 crit chance for fire and the other 2 caster levels and some evocation dc. Both of them have a bonus to charisma.
If we choose teifling or dragonborn we loose 2-7 wisdom from races as we could have chosen aasimar or shifter. Both dragonborn and teifling could get +4 to charisma and both of these gives benefits to fire damage, where aasimar or shifter does not.


Choosing epic destiny
Now let’s look at epic destinies. Again we found ourself gimped. The destiny that makes most sense for a nuker is draconic for the 30% crit multiplier. But again there is no bonus to transmutation or wisdom.
So I guess what I am saying is that if you do a fire druid nuker as a teifling in draconic you are loosing 4+6=10 in your main stat from race and epic destiny. The druid as I see it have problems enough getting the wisdom score high enough as it is, but I guess that depends on what difficulty you are playing. Right now I am sitting on 107 wisdom and I did really put an effort into it. I have heard of sorcs and wizards having 130. I am nowhere near that.


Other things and your input
I am really looking forward to the epic destiny pass coming later this year and hope the devs makes it possible to make wisdom based casters as nukers viable in endgame.
Maybe it is ok. I mean the way I play the druid is that is sort of a jack of all trades and thereby none. It can heal, it can cc, it can instakill and do some damage. Maybe it is ok that it is not possible to make a nuker druid that comes even close to a sorc...
Now I’d like to hear your thoughts on this. Is this fine as it is? Is there something I missed? Am I playing the druid all wrong?

[Haphazarduk]

Finding the guy/girl who suggested this to me
So some time ago I was playing a ice druid and someone suggested that I tried a fire druid. I remember he/she stated that ice druid is a trap. I am sorry but I cannot seem to find this post. If you can find this post or remember that you said this once please respond. I’d like to thank that guy.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...-for-levelling

[Ultinoob]

Thx for clearing that up.

And thanks to nobodynobody1426 for suggesting it.

[nobodynobody1426]

There isn't really a "Fire" Druid so much as a "Summer" Druid since their seasons boost other useful elements like force and positive. Fire is your big splash AoE damage and Salt Ray / Word of Balance is your big single target damage / stunning spells. Both Salt Ray and Word have SLA and regular versions, that means two separate timers for each spell allowing you to rotate them while jacking one version up with meta-magics for free.

You get +3CL/MCL to Fire, Force, Positive and Light spells while Fire Elemental Form gives you another +3 CL/MCL to just fire spells and lets you break resistance at level 17. Fires of Purity allows you to enchant a friendly melee or tank to give a stacking 10% vulnerability to fire on everything they hit. Salt Ray has a 15 MCL, Word of Balance a 20 MCL and Master feat that adds 10.

Here is what we end with for MCL's

Caster Level
Base: 20
ED: 5
Season: +3
Form: +3(fire only)
Draconic: +3(fire only)
Spell Augmentation: +1 (might not be worth it)
Total: 35

Fire Storm
MCL: 20
Season: +3
Elemental Form: +3
Draconic Knowledge: +3
Total: 29 * 11.5 = 333 base fire damage

Flamestrike (second AoE fire spell)
MCL: 24 * 11 = 264 base fire + bane damage

Fireseeds do more then Flamestrike but have casting / moving issues that makes the unreliable in a fast fight, useful for raid boss's. Has a smallish AoE radius.
MCL: 30 * 10.5 = 315 base fire damage

Salt Ray (extremely fast ray spell that does force damage and stuns targets)
MCL: 15
Season: +3
Feat: +10
Total: 28 * 9.5 = 266 base force damage

Word of Balance (ridiculously powerful alignment spell)
MCL: 20
Feat: 10
Total: 30
It doesn't get CL bonus's from season though so caster level is only 26 or 27.
26 * 15.5 = 403 bane damage applied twice for 806 total.

WoB needs a bit of explanation like most alignment spells, it's two attacks with one doing damage if the target is Good or Evil, the second doing damage if it's Lawful or Chaotic. That is 806 base bane damage to a Chaotic Evil, Lawful Evil monster and the handful of Chaotic Good / Lawful Good opponents that exist. Against Neutral Evil it's 403 bane damage, against true neutral it's zero bane damage. Also Word of Balance has No Save No Spell Resistance and is instant with no projectile or cast time.

That should give a layout of the various options to use, dual wield Fire / Force scepters and your primary spellpower and lore are covered. Probably want Flamecleansed Fury set with a LGS fire item somewhere. Fire becomes your primary AoE punch with WoB/Salt Ray being secondary for the situations they allow in. Salt Ray specifically can render targets helpless that might otherwise be immune to it like Oozes and Undead and has double range so lets you neutralize a target ahead of time.

Played an offensive Fire/Force druid recently as I was trying out all the new spell modifications, it plays very similarly to a Light/Fire FvS, less damage but some interesting options. It's only real weakness was SP supply, it doesn't have the cheap AoE SLA's of Fire/Sun Cleric nor the massive SP pool of FvS, spamming Fire spells gets expensive.